


One Thousand And Sixty-Two Stars

by elysean



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, Latin Hetalia - Fandom
Genre: Christmas Fluff, M/M, Mentions Of Other Hetalia Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 13:56:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17061047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elysean/pseuds/elysean
Summary: For the last few years, it has all been about looking to the past.But this Christmas, Martin gives Luciano something to look ahead.





	One Thousand And Sixty-Two Stars

**Author's Note:**

> On 2012, this was a secret santa I wrote for a friend. This year, it's my christmas rebound fic, all typos fixed.
> 
> I'm actually very proud of this one. It's worth publishing again.

There were fifteen minutes left before Christmas when Luciano felt a kiss in the back of his hand, the one that had been quietly locked with Martin’s for the last hour. He smiled, squeezing it gently in response.

There was a bottle of cider waiting to be opened on the table in front of them and the air smelt of fireworks and newborn summer days. There was a strange peacefulness—not the kind Christmas stories told about, but the one that took over Luciano every time Martin shatters the silence to pieces with his laugh. He never said it out loud, but in the end, Martin didn’t have to: Luciano knew December brought him bad memories and for the last few years, Martin did his best to try and cover it.

Luciano was the only one who ever dared to tell him that he wasn’t doing a very good job.

That was some years ago, but he remembered that moment as if it was yesterday. Martin didn’t even flinch; not a single strand of hair had moved from its place when Luciano decided to strike him with the honest truth, but his eyes were far too clear for his own good: there was a flash of hurt comparable to the pain you felt when someone hit you and then, of course, the resentfulness. Had it been any other time of their lives, Luciano would have regretted his words or enjoyed the storm inside his enemy’s eyes. But Martin was no longer his enemy and something—perhaps the hope days like Christmas seemed to bring or maybe just his desire to believe, believe, _believe_ that there was so much more between them that they needed yet to discover—gave him the courage to trust in the possibility that maybe Martin felt the same way.

His heart nearly jumped out of his chest when Martin smirked with a hint of something close to respect softening the green in his eyes and punched him (almost) lightly on the shoulder, as if to remark just how much of a _smartass_ Luciano was. After that, Martin finally stopped acting like he still enjoyed December the way he used to and to know that he had been right, that he was able to break down one of the many walls Martin built up— _that_ made Luciano smile more brightly than any Christmas star.

“You look drunk,” Martin teased him, pushing Luciano out of his thoughts.

“Am not,” Luciano retorted, lifting his head from Martin’s shoulder, but never letting go of his hand. His vision became a little blurry with the movement and his cheeks were warm with wine and memories.

“Then what was that goofy smile about?” Martin brushed his fingers with his lips again, the smile on his face tickling Luciano’s skin. “Were you remembering one of yours?”

“Even if I was, I wouldn’t tell you, blondie,” Luciano smiled. “It’s your turn this year, remember?”

Luciano and Martin were both men of many little traditions, so it wasn’t hard for them to find one to share. The day after that Christmas Eve, they had one of those long talks that once you reach a certain point, you can’t quite figure out what exactly leaded you there, but none of them wondered about that until they were back in their own houses. How they laughed over a couple of silly, old Christmas memories followed them like a sweet ghost, warming their hearts and curving their lips. They had two hundred years to collect stories of all kind; it was worth looking back together at least once a year.   

“And I was the one with the goofy smile.”

“Shut up,” Martin banged Luciano’s knee with his own, earning a laugh and a playful kick in the ankle from his partner. The smile was there again before Martin could even think about stopping it; he was still grateful for that talk. Luciano took a look at his watch and then grabbed the bottle of cider to start taking off its cover paper. “You better hurry, _Martinho_. I won’t pay any attention to you once I open this.”

“As if, party boy,” Martin responded by instinct, staring at the few stars he could see from the balcony of his apartment. He was thinking that it was a shame that neither of them could see a sky like the one that used to be there when they were young anymore, when a face he hadn’t seen in centuries turned to look at him from his place in the oldest of memories. Martin smiled at him. “Hey, did you know that it takes one thousand and sixty-two stars to get to Christmas?”

Luciano almost cut his finger when the knife slipped from the glassy paper. Martin felt his brown eyes trying to dig a hole in the side of his head and turned to stare right back at him, his smile growing bigger. “Like… you—what?” The puzzled look on Luciano’s face was so priceless Martin had to bite his lip to stop the laugh that rose to his throat.

“I’m not kidding,” Martin took the bottle from his hands before Luciano could actually hurt himself and finished pushing off the paper with his nails. “One thousand and sixty-two stars.”

“What, you _counted_ them? All night?” Luciano snorted. “Dude, sometimes I seriously worry about you.”

“I wasn’t the one counting them—would you let me finish, _carioca_?” The grin on Luciano’s face must have been pretty clear, because suddenly the red on Martin’s cheeks deepened and his next words came out so quickly that Luciano didn’t have the time to change that sentence’s meaning and raise the heat of the apartment for the few minutes left before the 25th. “When I was a kid, this priest arrived to Buenos Aires once. He used to give me candies every time I learnt a new prayer and sometimes, he would read me one of his poems—he loved writing, you know? Yeah, he was cool…” Martin paused, “the drunken old bag.”

“Seriously?” Luciano’s eyebrows quirked up, his mouth full of mantecol.

“You should have seen him dancing around the lamppost,” Martin snorted softly. “I sure did.”

Martin looked so different when he talked about these things and Luciano couldn’t even remember why they decided to do this only once a year. “So, this friend of yours…”

“Yeah,” Martin didn’t offer resistance when Luciano took the bottle from his hands. “I was very upset because a letter from Antonio had arrived that morning, apologizing for not coming home for Christmas. Guess I didn’t really understand how far away his home was, I don’t know. So, I got out of the house and started walking around. I found him on the stairs outside the church, mumbling something while he stared at the sky and I thought he was praying, but when I asked him why he was outside, he said that he was counting the stars because he couldn’t remember where he left his watch and that he needed to know what time it was because he had to ring the bells at midnight.”

Luciano stopped pressing on the cork for a moment. “Okay, but… how’s it that counting stars would help him know what time it was?”

“… I have no idea.”

The strangled noise that came out of Luciano before he started scaring off cats with his laughter was not as funny as the one Martin made when the cork suddenly popped out of the bottle, hit the roof and grazed his ear, almost making him fall off the chair. Martin cursed him loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear, but he couldn’t keep it up for long. There was nothing more contagious than Luciano’s cheerfulness and soon, Martin joined him too. They laughed until there were tears forming in the corner of Luciano’s eyes and Martin was sprawled in the chair, gasping for air.

“Dude, I should… I should put a warning in our borderline,” Luciano panted, drying the spume that dripped over his hand. “Your craziness’s more contagious than I give it credit for.”

“You tried to murder me with a cork, Luciano. You have no right to call me crazy,” Martin brought the glasses closer and grabbed the bottle again. “The man was drunk, okay? There was no point in asking him and since we were only minutes away from Christmas, I gave him my watch so he could ring the bells right on time.” Martin paused for a moment and then he started pouring the cider in the first glass. “Before he entered the church, he said to me: _now never forget, young man, that to get to Christmas you only need a thousand stars_.”

“Let me guess,” Luciano interrupted him at least. “You counted the rest.”

“Actually, Sebby did,” Martin’s eyes lit up when he said his brother’s name. “I told him about the talk I had with the priest when we were coming back home from church and he just couldn’t believe it.” Martin chuckled. “The very next Christmas, Sebby spent the whole night counting stars. I begged him to come inside and eat something, but the little prick stopped only to scold me.” Martin imitated his brother’s high-pitched voice from back then. “ _’You’re the one who brought this up, so you should be counting here with me.’_ ”

“You didn’t count shit.”

“Hey, I was busy trying to make him eat his fucking dinner,” Martin complained. “I couldn’t convince him to get inside the house, so I had to ask the servants to bring the plates outside for us. I sat behind him and let him use me as a pillow—and good thing I did, because Sebby basically passed out after he was done counting. At least, I could make him eat one plate while he was at it. That dumb kid, always needing to make sure of everything.”

Despite his harsh words, Luciano wasn’t blind to the kindness in his voice or the gentleness in his eyes. He couldn’t help but wonder if Martin knew how different he looked; of how much he changed when he talked about those kinds of memories, as if he were another person. But no, that might not be right. Because maybe this was the old Martin—the one Daniel had loved as a father and Manuel had entrusted his life to when their hands were clumsy with swords; the one Miguel could still see every time Martin sneaked into his kitchen to take a bite out of whatever he was cooking when he thought the Peruvian wasn’t looking; the one that used to tell bedtime stories to Sebastian and crawl into bed with him on stormy nights— _not_ because he was scared, of course, but because he didn’t want his little brother to be scared; the one Luciano didn’t get to meet.

“You’ve always spent the holidays with your family, right?” The heart plummeted in his chest for a second. They were all his friends now and so they’d been for a long time; so long he couldn’t even remember when exactly he started spending the holidays with them. But it seemed like it was always going to be there for him, like a ghost clinging to his skin: the child of the different language, the distant land, with nothing more but a cross to prove that he belonged to something he had yet to understand.

“Always,” Martin responded instantly and Luciano bit the inside of his cheek, hoping he didn’t sound as bitter as he heard himself. He wrapped his fingers around his glass to hold it still while Martin filled it with cider and decided to do what he always did best: joke about the things that made him feel uncomfortable to let them go more easily.

“Man, I feel like a thief,” Luciano grinned, his fingers getting cold. “Take you away, all to myself.”

“You can’t whisk me away, dumbass,” Martin stopped what he was doing to raise one of his golden eyebrows at him, as if he just said the stupidest thing in the world. “You’re my family too.”

Luciano’s smile froze in his face and faltered, as if he couldn’t understand the words at first and then the world shut down around them. The palms of his hands were suddenly damp and he thought with a weird sense of distance, as if he were seeing this scene from one of the clouds above their heads, that he couldn’t blame the glass under his fingers for that. Martin kept going on about how much of a terrible thief he would be if he was going to hide him in his own damn house and Luciano tried to swallow the fact that Martin just said he was his family too as if it was the most natural thing to say, but it got stuck in his throat and only then he realized how hot his body was and _God_ —

Luciano felt tears pooling in his eyes, but all he had now was a little child laughing inside of him, happier than he had heard him in a very long time. And the boy wanted nothing more than to be with Martin.

The Argentine checked his watch. “Ten seconds, Lu. Let’s—uh…” Luciano grabbed him by the wrist when he tried to stand up and Martin finally looked at him. His heart skipped a beat the moment their eyes met. There was something in Luciano’s expression that wasn’t there before and Martin couldn’t really explain it, just stare in admiration at how beautiful he looked. He let his fingers slide off the glass and next thing he knew, they were holding hands again. The fireworks were already illuminating the night sky when they both leaned forward to kiss.

They had kissed like this, many times before, yet there was something different about this one—Martin wasn’t sure, but he could feel it in the way Luciano kept the distance in the kiss; how he didn’t open his mouth or pressed on his lips to make him do just that. It was caring, like the ones Luciano usually left on his temple to drive the headaches away, and most of all gentle, as if this were their very first. It was familiar and unknown at the same time, but it felt right anyway, like the missing part of a puzzle finding its place. Martin wrapped Luciano’s shoulders with his free arm and leaned against the head of the chair for support, searching for a more comfortable position for the two of them. He didn’t dare to do anything else. Because this, this was important for Luciano and so it was important to him too. Martin would have to ask him one day, but not today. Not this night. Not when the only thing he felt like saying was: “I love you.”

Luciano grinned at his words and hugged him tight, mumbling his response against Martin’s neck. It was such an unexpected, shy gesture that Martin couldn’t help but silently wonder again what he’d missed in the last five minutes. Yet he was feeling so inexplicably happy too for some reason that he just held Luciano closer, combing those black curls of his with his fingers. They kept embracing each other until the fireworks stopped and all there was left were children laughing inside their heads.

“Hey,” Luciano’s voice was barely above a whisper. “How many kisses do you think are left before next Christmas?”

“Who knows?” Martin smiled against his skin and then kissed his cheek, as if to prove that he was willing to take the challenge and go find out with him. “More than a thousand, that’s for sure.”

**Author's Note:**

> I get war flashbacks with this fandom, but I'm never really over it.
> 
> Merry Christmas y'all.


End file.
